PLANET GRIFFIN, that pirate blogcast you keep firmly on your bookmarks tool, comes to you a little heavy on this not-so-easy-like-Sunday-morning. At 77 years young, legendary comics frontman DICK GIORDANO has passed away... Beginning as a penciller/inker for Charleston Comics back in the early 50's to its Editor-in-Chief in 1965, he would later move over to DC Comics as an inker (but not before opening the industry doors for future legends Jim Aparo and Dennis O'Neil.)
Giordano would be most notable for engineering the original 'crossover blockbusters' like SUPERMAN VS. SPIDER MAN and SUPERMAN VS. MUHAMMAD ALI as well as the GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW with the great NEAL ADAMS. It was Giordano's skill at crossover events led him to usher in a little known DC Event called 'THE CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS' ( Quite frankly, the ONLY large scale crossover event with juice that Marvel's been trying to recreate for themselves for 20 years...) , as well as famously using the last of his 'pull' with the closing of Charleston Comics, to purchase a little story involving Charleston characters for DC, firmly entrenching them forever into the first page of comics history...
... The Charleston Comics story was known as WATCHMEN.
A tough and shrewd businessman, Giordano truly set the benchmark in comics. (Look, this guy rejected JIM LEE starting out, yet stuck with him to continue developing a style that would eventually become the most recognized and imitated in the industry--- you gotta hand it to him)
Mr. GIORDANO, PLANET GRIFFIN definitely salutes you.
2 comments:
one of the big names from my childhood.
RIP
Crazy news. Definitely thankful for all the contributions he made to set up so many of the pillars we consider foundational now.
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